


Best Laid Plans

by thedevilchicken



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Bathing/Washing, First Meetings, First Time, Getting Together, M/M, Minor Injuries, Missions, Post-Canon, Shaving, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:22:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27169240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: They met on the roof of the Sainte-Chapelle nearly twenty years ago. And nothing since that moment has ever gone to plan.
Relationships: Arno Dorian/Ratonhnhaké:ton | Connor
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36
Collections: Fic In A Box





	Best Laid Plans

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sumi/gifts).



He was perching on the roof of the Sainte-Chapelle the day they met. 

It was raining and it had been all morning since he'd woken up, which Arno thinks more or less set the tone for their relationship as a whole. He remembers it being autumn then and the leaves had all changed from green to vibrant reds and oranges and everywhere he went, he had bits of them stuck to his boots. He wouldn't have minded but every now and then he'd notice and remember how much M. de la Serre had hated finding bits of broken-up foliage traipsed through the house because Arno had run in without wiping his feet, _again_. And as if that wasn't more than enough already, he knew the maids at the Café-Théâtre were getting rather sick of his habits. 

Élise wouldn't have cared, though, because she'd sometimes done the exact same thing, and Arno had sometimes taken the blame for her. He remembered how she'd smile and wink as she walked away like it was their little secret and her father didn't know, but the truth was her father had always known. Sometimes, it had seemed like M. de la Serre had known everything. The only thing he hadn't seen coming was one of the things Arno finds he most regrets.

He wasn't actually thinking about Élise when they met that rainy autumn day, though. He wasn't thinking about M. de la Serre or the Templar Order or even the leaves stuck to his boots - he wasn't thinking about very much of anything at all apart from how grey the sky looked and how wet his coat was probably getting and how if he stayed there much longer he'd probably get cramp in his calves. He was just perching there on the stone rail of the walkway at the foot of the Sainte-Chapelle's steep leaded roof, looking out over the Palais de Justice and then north over the river where he could just make out the shine of the roof of la halle aux blés, albeit rendered quite dull by the rain. It was peaceful up there. Sometimes peaceful was good and sometimes it was the worst of all possible outcomes; that day, it seemed good.

It wasn't pouring or he'd probably have climbed down onto the terrace over the main entrance and sat there on the floor until it eased off a bit, or maybe he'd have gone inside and perched himself on one of the high-up window sills. Even when it was dull outside, the stained glass windows inside the Sainte-Chapelle seemed to glow with a hundred different colours and make everything just a little brighter. Perhaps he didn't feel much closer to God there but it did make him feel warmer inside, at least. Sometimes warmer was good, but that particular day he was content to be cold.

He was perching on the rail where once upon a time he'd fought Pierre Bellec when a sound behind him made him push up and turn abruptly. And perhaps he wasn't thinking about Élise, or the Templars, or the leaves stuck to his boots, but _not_ thinking about the leaves really didn't seem to help him - before he could catch his balance, a large red leaf almost the colour of newly-spilled blood had interacted somewhat dangerously with the wet chapel stone and he'd gone and slipped. He'd well and truly lost his footing and he could almost see the epitaph as he started to fall: _here lies Arno Dorian: slayer of Templars; ended by a leaf_. But the ground didn't rise up to meet him. A hand met him instead, catching him by the wrist and wrenching him up to safety. He supposes if the rain set the tone then so did the fact that Connor Kenway saved his life. 

"Arno Dorian?" his sudden saviour said, once he'd deposited Arno back onto the walkway, in a distinctly not-French accent. He still had Arno's wrist in his hand and Arno's hand clasped his in return, and though both of them were wearing rather thick gloves, Arno could have sworn he felt the heat of his fingers through the leather. He definitely felt the way he squeezed just a fraction too tightly, though whether that was intentional or not he wasn't sure. These days he'd say it was definitely intentional.

"Who's asking?" he replied. He might conceivably have narrowed his eyes just slightly, too.

The man said something that made no sense at all in any language Arno understood. He made a confused face in response and the man sighed and shook his hooded head. He stepped back and he took back his large hand. 

"You can call me Connor," he said, switching to English, like a man exasperatedly used to people being completely incapable of saying his actual name without making the same confused face that Arno just had. 

"You don't sound like a Connor," Arno replied, also making a swift switch to English. 

"Do you know many Connors?" 

Arno wrinkled his nose. "No, I don't suppose I do," he said.

Connor, or at least the man who'd said his name was Connor even though it very likely wasn't Connor at all, shrugged at him. The movement was wide, and open, and showed off a hidden blade strapped there to the inside of both his wrists, which Arno supposed might have been at least half the point of him doing it. The other half was probably to say, _thank you for making my point for me to succinctly_.

"Well, then," the man said, as he brought his arms back in and crossed them over his chest. "You should call me Connor. I'm an Assassin."

Arno had to admit that he looked the part: even aside from the blades, he wore a very familiar style of hood pulled up against the rain and the Assassin symbol buckling his belt was, while not particularly discreet, at least well-worn and comfortable-seeming enough to look like it might have belonged to the man wearing it. And, of course, if Connor had wanted him dead, all he'd have had to do was let him fall instead of catching him. 

"How did you find me?" Arno asked. 

Connor shrugged again. This time the motion seemed more natural than deliberate and he gestured vaguely to the roof area they were standing on, or perhaps to all the secrets that were hidden neatly under it. 

"They said I'd find you here," he said. 

"And why were you looking for me?"

"I came to Paris looking for assistance, not for you in particular. Your brothers pointed me to you." 

"So, what can I assist you with?"

"We should go inside."

"You should tell me now." 

So they stood there in the rain as it finally did start to pour and Connor told him - albeit in rather broad strokes - what he was doing in France. He told him as water started dripping from the peaks of their hoods and Arno felt his shoulders getting damp from it where the fabric of his coat stretched tightest. They should have gone inside, but Arno was maybe a bit too stubborn to admit it.

Connor, it turned out, really hadn't been looking for him in particular; he'd told the Paris Brotherhood about what he intended to do and, from what Arno could tell, the elders had shared a look and told him that the only man they knew who _might_ go running off to almost certain death with a total stranger - even a stranger with verifiable Brotherhood credentials - was Arno Victor Dorian. He couldn't miss him, they'd said: he was the fool currently sitting on the rooftop in the rain. Apparently they'd said he did that a lot. Arno really couldn't argue with that, though he supposed it did make him look a bit eccentric.

Arno remembers laughing. "Well, that certainly sounds like them," he said. "And they're not wrong; I'm likely the only one who's fool enough to go anywhere with you." 

"And will you?" 

He considered that. He pushed his hood down and he tilted head back and he let the rain fall on his face, eyes closed. When he opened them again, and swiped the water from his eyes with one leather-gloved hand, he nodded. 

"I will," he said. "But first I might need some dry clothes." Connor, quite literally dripping wet himself, didn't object to that idea at all.

He led Connor back to the Café-Théâtre, over rooftops and across high-strung wires, through open doors to houses whose occupants were frankly getting used to it, and up the side of the building straight up to his room. He might have meant it as a test, he supposes, and if he did then Connor passed with flying colours; some of the other Paris Assassins still had trouble keeping up with him when he really hit his stride, but Connor barely seemed to break a sweat while Arno's heart pounded pleasantly. Of course, it was difficult to tell who was sweating or not with the way they were both soaked to the skin when they vaulted over the balcony wall and went in through the open doors. 

"Do you always leave your doors wide open?" Connor asked, as Arno was busy closing said doors behind them so the roaring fire could warm the rather chilly space back up. He waved at the closed doors and gave Connor a rather pointed look like _well, they seem to be closed now_ , and Connor held up both his hands in acknowledgement as he dripped onto the polished parquetry. Arno spotted one of the café's maids scampering conveniently past the door to his room and he called her before she could flee completely, so he could ask her to have the bathtub filled and find somebody to dry their clothes. She did something that almost looked like a curtsey then scampered off again. 

"I'm not going to kill you while you're in my bath," Arno told Connor as he eyed the tub with some degree of skepticism. He'd spent the intervening time peering at Arno's book and trying not to look like he was reading the papers on his desk but Arno had actually been trained rather well after all, it seemed; it was hard to miss the way Connor's gaze had flickered down even as he was ostensibly eyeing the painting on the wall. Arno, for his part, had pulled off his wet coat and let it drop into a heap out of the way of the door while people started running in and out to fill the tub. He'd taken off his wet boots, too - miraculously without shedding pieces of leaf for the maids to clean up - and pulled off his wet socks and stood there barefoot on the parquet floor watching his damp and inquisitive guest. 

At that moment, however, Connor was eyeing the tub like it might be full of acid instead of steaming hot water, though apparently he decided that Arno had a point - there would have been a number of simpler ways to kill him should he have wanted to, most of which wouldn't have involved having the café's staff ferry multiple buckets of water up the stairs. So the maid stood behind the folding screen while Connor undressed himself and passed Arno his soaking clothes. Arno undressed himself, too, doing a very poor job of ignoring the fact that Connor - who had by then stepped into the tub - was watching him as he did so. Then he passed the maid his own clothes, from around the edge of the screen so as not to completely scandalise the poor girl, and wrapped a large towel around his waist before taking a seat on the chair by the fire. It seemed like as good a place as any for them to talk some more. 

"So, you're looking for an Apple," Arno said, at length, and briefly wandered away to his fruit bowl. He threw a big red apple across the room and Connor caught it where he was sitting in the bath, and bit into it, and Arno laughed. He was barefoot and bare-chested with his long hair hanging loose to dry around his shoulders and the towel clung low down on his hips, and as he returned to the fire with another apple of his own, he caught Connor's eyes on his precarious state of mostly-undress. He perhaps didn't trust the man, at least not yet or not completely, and perhaps the lack of clothes had been a bit of a ploy to prove they were both unarmed if not completely defenceless, but he had to admit he enjoyed the attention. 

"It's not this kind of apple," Connor replied, holding his fruit up with a large bite taken out of it. "It's made of gold. Or something that looks like it. From what I understand, there are several of them, but most have been lost. I've tracked this one to France."

"To _where_ in France?" Arno asked.

"To Franciade." 

Arno tried to make sure his face didn't give him away, given he'd already made a trip to Franciade, and the simplest way he could think of to do that was to whip the towel off from around his waist and use it to rub at his hair instead. It might not have been his most intelligent moment as it did leave him rather nude in front of his guest - then again, his guest was the one currently lounging naked in his bathtub, all dark hair and broad shoulders and scars a lot like Arno had - if he was some kind of an impostor instead of an Assassin, at least he hadn't been fooled easily. Connor had thin braids in his long hair that he was working on untying when Arno removed the towel from his head and started combing his hair with his fingers. Then he watched him slide down the side of the tub, knees sticking up out of it, and dunk his head down underneath the water. When he came back up, he stood and let the hot water sluice away from his body, dripping back down into the tub. Arno bit the inside of his cheek. 

"Will you still come?" Connor asked, which frankly seemed like a faintly ludicrous question for a man standing naked in a virtual stranger's bathtub. "Maybe I could do this alone, but I would prefer not to."

Arno stood, rather naked himself though also rather drier, the towel still in his hands. He passed it to Connor, relinquishing his pseudo-armour, and set his hands on his hips. 

Connor was a big man. He was tall, taller than Arno was and he wouldn't have called himself short, bigger through the shoulders and bulkier with muscle. His wet hair clung to his skin and Arno followed the lines of water running from the ends of it and over his broad chest, over his abdomen that shifted tantalisingly as he breathed, and down between his thighs. It dripped from the tip of his cock and Arno stopped only very short of rolling his eyes at himself for the thought that he'd have quite liked to have stepped in and leaned down and licked it away. He dragged said eyes back up to his face instead. He bit the inside of his cheek again. 

"Why not," he said, as Connor stepped out of the bath onto the stone floor by the hearth. "It's not as if I'm otherwise engaged." 

"Tonight?"

"It's raining and I'm tired." Arno raised his eyebrows, still standing there naked with his hands on his hips, and gave Connor a rather pointed look up and down at his own state of wet undress. "And neither of us is dressed for it. We'll take a carriage in the morning."

Connor snorted in a kind of rough amusement and continued towelling himself down. Arno went to put on some dry clothes, because he thought that might distract himself from the fact there was an attractive man of semi-dubious intent standing naked in his bedroom. And he definitely didn't mention the fact that he'd already been to Franciade, and been down into the catacombs, and opened up the temple somewhere underneath the Basilica of Saint Denis, and taken the lantern. He _definitely_ didn't mention that he'd already found the Apple and sent it away to be kept somewhere safe - safer than the remains of the lantern was, at least, since it currently resided underneath his bed. But the fact was, he didn't know Connor from Adam, and he wasn't about to tell him what he'd been and done in Franciade without knowing more about him. He certainly wasn't going to tell him what he'd done with the Apple.

They ate dinner together at the table in Arno's room while there was singing downstairs in the café, after dark. They talked a little, wary but without their blades strapped to their wrists, and Arno was grateful that M. de la Serre had insisted that he and Élise both learn English in their youth; it turned out during the conversation that it wasn't Connor's first language, either, so in that respect they were even. Connor spoke without revealing very much about himself, but it seemed that he was at least ten years Arno's senior and originally from the colonies, though Arno supposed he could have worked out both of those things himself given the way he looked and the way he spoke. He seemed sure of himself in a way Arno wasn't sure he'd ever been or ever would be, too, and let his gaze roam over Arno's things rather openly, which Arno found he didn't mind. He enjoyed Connor's bluntness. It made a change from all France's pretty manners hiding something ugly underneath. 

"You can take the bed," Arno told him, when the clock had long since chimed eleven and they'd both started to yawn. They'd had a drink each, just one, which they'd watched each other linger over for the best part of an hour, though the small amount left in the bottle probably said something about Arno's usual disposition toward alcohol. The fact they didn't drink more than that probably said something about their current levels of trust in each other, too.

Connor glanced at the neatly made bed - not Arno's doing in the slightest - then back at him again. "So where will you be?" he asked. 

Arno pointed to the ladder that led up into the eaves. "If you need me, there's a room up there," he said. "Or several rooms, I suppose, but I won't be hard to find." Then he took a book and climbed up, which he knew from experience was much harder to do if you'd had too much to drink. If he'd had to bet on it, he'd have said Connor watched him go. 

Connor didn't bother him that night. He didn't bother Connor, either, though he lay on his rather improvised bed - better than he'd had in the Bastille, he supposed - and considered bothering him. He considered bothering him with his hands and his mouth, underneath the blankets on his familiar bed though the man lying on it really wasn't familiar at all and might conceivably have been attempting to kill him. But he'd seen just enough of Connor's body to imagine his bare skin against the sheets in the lamplight, how the faint stubble he'd seen over his abdomen might feel against his own not particularly clean-shaven cheek, and...other things. He thought about a lot, lying there not so very far away. And he clamped one hand down hard over his own mouth to keep from making any telltale noises as he wrapped the other one around his cock. No sense in denying himself, he thought - it wasn't like Connor would be there for long, after all, and it wasn't like he'd know.

In the morning, they left Paris proper for the suburbs - it wasn't a long trip by any stretch of the imagination, really just a short trip outside the city walls, but it was far enough that he wouldn't have wanted to walk. Arno had a man from the café drive them out there in the carriage, bumping along over the cobbles in a way that almost made Arno wish they had in fact just walked, and two hours of picking their way through narrow Paris streets later, watching people and horses and other carriages pass by through the window, they jumped down into yet more chilly autumn rain. Arno smiled to himself as he imagined another bath after another soaking, though he suspected that wasn't exactly on the cards for them. Honestly, that seemed a bit of a pity. 

They took a room in an inn, or at least a room above a tavern where there were already several people drinking even though it wasn't even quite the afternoon. They were a somber lot and, as they were making their way up the rickety stairs, Arno wondered if they'd strike up singing later in the day once they'd got a bit - or a lot - more booze in them, and the truth was that on occasion he might have felt like joining them in either mood. He also knew the place wasn't far from where he'd stayed when he'd come to Franciade the first time, to meet de Sade, though he'd carefully avoided the same place where the innkeeper's familiarity with him might have given the game away. It had been four years or more, maybe five or six, but he couldn't see that it was worth taking that risk just so they wouldn't have to share the one room that was available above the daytime drinkers. When he thought about the Bastille again, sharing a room with Connor didn't seem like all that much of a hardship.

"We should go now," Connor said, once they'd set the few things they'd brought with them down in the not terribly secure room. Arno was glad that he tended to travel light; all he had with him aside from his weapons was a change of clothes in case of rain or other calamities, given they so frequently befell him, and a copy of one of de Sade's books that M. le Marquis had thoughtfully had delivered to the Café-Théâtre, wrapped in a silk scarf and tied up with velvet ribbon just because that was the ostentatious way he was. It perhaps wasn't exactly quite Arno's style, either the book or the way it had arrived, but he could honestly say his acquaintance with the man had never been dull. He didn't expect it ever would be.

Connor, as it turned out, had even less with him - he had his weapons, too, and the clothes he stood up in, and a notebook he kept tucked into his jacket's inside pocket just over his heart, and a very small bag that basically contained equipment enough to shave his face and brush his teeth and comb his hair. He'd told Arno he'd come directly from the Americas, and that he'd once upon a time had a ship of his own, but he'd been forced to travel by passenger vessel at rather short notice. He supposed that explained why his clothes looked shabby and quite like the rain had actually done them something of a service. 

The room was small and sparse, just a double bed and a square table with two mismatched chairs at it, and a small cabinet by one side of the bed that looked like it had seen a number of lamp-related accidents over the years, and a chest of drawers that might have been better broken down for firewood considering every one of its handles had been broken off to a different level of completeness. He supposed at least that made it the most secure location in the room and Arno used his pocket knife to open a drawer to leave his things in alongside Connor's. They took their weapons - Arno's pistols and sword, Connor's axe and bow - and made their way through the streets to the basilica; it wasn't hard to pretend he didn't know those streets, since the church's tower was a visible landmark to head towards almost everywhere they went, and when they arrived it was more or less the same as Arno had left it some time ago - in a similar state of disrepair though less teeming with soldiers and, in places, some faint attempt at restoration had begun. 

Arno already knew precisely what they'd find there in the church, though, which was precisely nothing. He also knew what they'd find there underneath it, which was very little more than that. Especially as the two of them had only one lantern between them - Arno's, which he'd brought with him from the café back to where he'd found it - and the bats and the rats kept Connor almost awkwardly close to him. 

Connor, as it happened, had his own brand of the Assassins' second sight that Arno had himself. Arno passed an interesting few hours pretending he unfortunately possessed no such talent and letting Connor guide them wherever he thought they should go next; it was really for the best, he thought, since he was fairly sure he remembered the way and leading him to the temple wasn't high on his list of priorities. He didn't actually want to lead him anywhere at all except maybe, as the day wore slowly on, back to the tavern for a drink and something hot to eat. The catacombs were dark and dank and perhaps not as wet as the rain would be making the streets outside but it was _cold_ down there, even with his thick coat buttoned all the way up to his chin. Connor didn't seem to feel the cold, though, as they trudged on down yet another passageway, through yet another deserted room, through old familiar caverns.

Connor kept glancing at him sideways as they meandered. He was a bit too close for either of them to really focus and he'd frown again and again, though Arno supposed that could have been a function of the odd light from his rather oddly-shaped lantern. Perhaps bringing the Head of Saint Denis back to Franciade with him hadn't been his most stunningly intellectual moment, even divested of its Apple as it was, but he'd known they'd be taking a trip into the catacombs and while yes, on his previous visit the raiders had left out conveniently located vats of oil, he couldn't guarantee that would be the case this time. There were no vats of oil, as it happened. It almost surprised him that Connor didn't ask him what exactly the head-shaped lantern was burning that it didn't need replenishment. 

"It's been hours," Arno said, at last, as they checked back through the early tunnels one more time. There were miles of those tunnels that they hadn't explored, Arno knew that, and some of them were much more likely to yield the kind of information Connor had apparently come looking for, but he really didn't feel very much like pointing out that they were looking in the wrong place. "We might want to head back to the tavern and get something to eat, unless you want to starve to death lost in catacombs where no one knows to find us." 

Connor made a face in the awkward lamplight but apparently he didn't disagree with Arno's general point. And so they made their way back up to the basilica and from there back to the inn, darting in and out of doorways along the way to try to keep the worst of the now pouring rain off them. It didn't work particularly well, but Arno supposed at least it meant Connor wasn't giving him strange looks. 

The best food that the inn could serve them was some kind of thick soup that Arno couldn't say he entirely liked the look of but he supposed he'd eaten worse. Connor didn't look impressed but was apparently just as hungry as Arno was, and afterwards they sat in a quiet corner and nursed a glass of brandy each, just like they'd done the night before. And, as they sat there, possibly just to keep from mentally retreading all those empty corridors, they talked.

"My father was a Templar," Connor told him, his voice low, as the night got dark and late, and Arno wondered for a moment if that was meant sincerely as a gesture of trust, or otherwise to manipulate him. He honestly couldn't tell which it was, but he knew which option he'd have preferred.

"So was the man who brought me up," he replied, eventually. "They had my actual father killed." 

Arno frowned and swirled his glass as he held it in both hands - both the glass and the brandy in it were a little fancier than he'd expected the inn might be able to provide, at least based on the establishment's appearance - and he wondered how much more he should say, but Connor didn't seem to be in the mood to talk much more than that. They sipped their brandy slowly, sitting there quietly as the tavern's boozy occupants did indeed begin to sing. And, when they went upstairs back to their hired room, they took off their coats and boots and stretched out side by side in the one shabby bed. They were both half dressed but with their hidden blades still very much in place; so much for gestures of trust, Arno really couldn't help but think, but he was frankly too tired to think much else besides. Eventually, while wondering what the hell he was doing there in Franciade, he drifted off to sleep.

In the morning, he woke with Connor's arm slung heavily across his chest and the mechanism of one of his hidden blades poking him semi-uncomfortably in the armpit - given their proximity, though, he supposed he should have been grateful that he hadn't triggered the blade and expired in his sleep. Connor woke shortly thereafter and looked at him, only half awake but his eyes still seemed sharp; he looked like Arno imagined he might look, too, whenever he concentrated enough to see the world in the strange way some other Assassins did. Bellec had taught him that not all of them had the skill - they were born with it, he'd said, which he supposed meant some Templars also had it. Bellec had said a lot of things, though, some of which had turned out to be very strange reflections of the truth, like looking at it through the somewhat murky surface of the Seine. But he was sure Connor was looking at him with that sense engaged. He wondered what he saw, but he didn't ask. He wondered if it would seem rude to look at him that way himself, but he didn't do it.

"Did you sleep well?" Arno asked instead, as Connor slowly removed himself to his own side of the bed. It really wasn't a large bed, really only just large enough for them to lie side by side without touching, so Arno couldn't say that motion took him very far away.

"You snore," Connor replied. 

"I did warn you about that."

"It could have been worse." 

Then Connor pulled himself up and out of bed and proceeded to strip off every last scrap of clothing that he'd worn to bed so that he could wash himself in a bowl of chilly water somewhere across the rather small room. The shutters were closed and the somewhat shabby curtains were drawn, but there was still enough light to see him by and while he had his back turned, Arno watched him. He watched him, wondering if his skin would feel cold to the touch if he put his own still bed-warm hands on him. He wondered if Connor would stop him if he did, but he didn't try it. After all, he didn't know the man - he'd only met him two days earlier and for all he knew, this was just how men in the Americas were.

He watched him shave next, soaping his face first and shaving that clean with great precision, then soaping his chest, then the stubble that had grown in leading down from his navel to the root of his cock. Arno really couldn't help but watch him do it - he'd never seen any man shave more than his face, at least not in his presence, but the way that Connor held the razor in his hand, with the sharp edge of the blade against his balls as he stood there with one bare foot propped up on a chair, spoke of practice. He would have liked to have touched him there even more so, feeling his freshly-shaved skin against his calloused fingertips, rubbing it with his own prickly jaw. He couldn't help but wonder if Connor might have liked that, too. He couldn't help but wonder if he was doing it all entirely on purpose and that wasn't how men in the Americas were at all.

He washed himself once Connor was done, quickly, trying to ignore the fact that Connor's rather intense gaze was on him and that his own cock was frustratingly half hard, but the chill of the water soon put an end to that. He dressed. They ate, sitting at the table where Connor had just shaved, taking pieces of bread and meat from the same plate. And then, though frankly Arno would have greatly preferred to go back to bed whether Connor joined him there or not, they went back to the catacombs. 

They went back to the catacombs for four extremely long days in a row and wandered there in almost total silence. Arno had never been a particularly _silence_ kind of man, he had to admit, so it wasn't the most pleasant of experiences he'd had in his life, and not only because he'd have preferred to be up on the rooftop of the Sainte-Chapelle or reading his odd book in the armchair by his bedroom window. De Sade would probably come by the café at some point, or at least send him an elaborately scrawled letter with some gaudily-dressed courier, asking if he'd enjoyed the book, though he'd probably put it a lot more crudely than that. But the fact was he was enjoying his nights with Connor much more than reading about things he really couldn't talk about in polite society. Then again, he supposed it had been quite some time since he'd been anywhere particularly _polite_.

They went back to the catacombs for four days and then returned to the tavern in the evening. They talked a little while they sat together, about where they were each from - Kanatahséton didn't exactly seem much like Versailles had been in Arno's youth. They talked about the people that they'd lost - when Connor said he'd had to kill his father, Arno supposed at least he hadn't killed his own, too, though he knew he'd always feel some degree of guilt for the deaths of Élise and M. de la Serre. And when they went up to their room, once the rowdy singing started, Connor would write in his notebook at the table or read some of the pages that he'd already covered up with notes while Arno lounged on the bed with his rather lurid book. The more he read, the more he realised he was drawing Connor's face and Connor's body onto half the filthy situations that de Sade described. When they lay down together at the end of each night, when they pulled up the scratchy blanket and put out the lamp, Arno turned his back and tried to pretend his cock wasn't half-hard as he listened to him breathe. 

He fell asleep each night wishing his arousal away then woke up each morning with Connor's arm flung across his chest and the imprint of his hidden blade pressed into his ribs through his shirt. Each morning, Connor looked at him that same way, that odd Assassin way, as if trying to figure out what exactly he was keeping from him, though he ultimately failed. Then they washed, and they dressed, and they ate, then they went back to the basilica and down into the catacombs. 

By the fifth day, Arno has to admit he was starting to regret going back to Franciade. He missed his bed, and good food, and the possibility of getting falling-down drunk without too much concern that whoever happened to be lying beside him might stab him in the night. He watched from the bed with a familiar prickle of arousal as Connor shaved himself in the gloomy morning light, definitely regretting that he'd come to Franciade because very nearly all he felt like doing was taking the razor from Connor's hand and doing the job for him, so his fingers could graze all of his bare skin. Then, they went back into the catacombs. _Again_.

He has to admit he wasn't expecting the tunnel to cave in quite the way it did. He'd seen cracks forming there day by day with his eagle vision - which was, apparently, what Connor called it - but he hadn't expected that one false step and the prospect of lingering raiders seeking lost treasure would be the very least of their worries. 

"Well, this is _not_ how I expected to spend today," Arno said, once they'd determined they were both more or less fine and not spurting blood under a pile of rubble. Of course, how he'd expected to spend the day was wandering through underground passages trying not to accidentally lead his companion anywhere he oughtn't, so this was actually a fair deal more exciting in its own strange way.

Although the lantern had ended up lying on its side and sandwiched between two large chunks of fallen rock, it was still lit just like it always was, and by the light of it he could see just how grumpy Connor looked as he dusted himself down. Arno did the same thing, coughed when he breathed in a mouthful of dust that he'd just knocked off, and then peered upwards to the cracked-through stretch of tunnel from which they'd so unceremoniously just dropped. It was too high and lacking in handholds to climb back up and honestly, even with Connor's strength, he wasn't sure that attempting to throw him at the top like some kind of human grappling hook was going to work out terribly well for anyone concerned. He suspected he'd end up sliding face-first down a rather uncomfortable-looking rock face and ending up back where he'd started, or possibly on top of Connor. Not that he'd have minded the latter all too much.

Of course, suddenly none of that seemed quite as pertinent as the fact that Connor pulled his notebook from his inside pocket and started peering at a map that he'd thoroughly neglected to mention he possessed. Arno politely pretended not to notice. After all, he'd been there before and he didn't need a map to tell him they were stuck; none of the catacomb walls were going to magically push back to reveal a hidden passage, at least not in that exact location. There were no puzzles to solve so they could neatly save themselves. Perhaps it wasn't the bleakest situation in which he'd ever found himself, but it definitely didn't look particularly filled with delight. Filled with dust and rock and Connor grimacing, yes, but not with delight. 

"You've been here before," Connor said, abruptly, as he snapped his notebook closed.

Arno looked back down from the out-of-reach tunnel then dropped into a crouch to try to free the lantern. "You know, I can honestly say I've not been here," he replied, while studiously not looking at him. Because that was, technically speaking, the truth of it. 

"But you've been into these tunnels before." 

Arno made a face that might have been obscured by the way he was tugging at the lantern that was still trapped between rocks. "Once or twice, maybe," he said. "Years ago." 

"You failed to mention that." 

"You failed to mention that you have a map." 

"Does that make us even?" 

Arno looked at him. "Let's decide that when we've figured out how not to spend the rest of our lives arguing in a pit," he said, and then turned his attention back to the lantern.

Connor muttered something about how he actually didn't think they were arguing, and Arno stood up with the lantern he'd just managed to free and kicked the wall in irritation, which just sent another spray of dust over the two of them. Connor blew the dust off his notebook with a scowl as Arno shook it off his hair in the manner of a rather large dog. And maybe the lantern was looking a little worse for wear, but he supposed at least they didn't have to worry about the light going out.

The situation did not look good. The rock was too hard for Arno to make much of a dent in it with his sword, at least not quickly and never mind carving handholds, and even if they'd had anything like rope to tie to an arrow for Connor to fire out of the pit with his slightly scuffed bow, there was nothing up there but rock so it wasn't like it could stick. The walls were solid; there was no breaking through them, even if Arno had actually thought to bring a guillotine gun along to bombard it with mortars, and even if that wouldn't have resulted in their untimely deaths given the close quarters. There wasn't enough rock that had fallen with them to make any kind of sensible ramp to get themselves close enough to the top to climb, and Connor's map showed absolutely nothing useful. Nor did Arno's memory of the place, or either of their eagle vision, which Connor apparently also knew he had so he made a note to have a conversation with his Parisian Assassin brothers. 

So, in the end, they started chipping away at the stone: Arno with his sword and Connor with the odd little axe he carried tucked into his belt. 

"This is going to take forever," Arno said, perhaps an hour later, as they chiselled at the wall by the light of the saint's-head lantern. 

"You'd better hope it doesn't take that long," Connor replied. 

Arno sighed. "You know, I already found the Apple," he said. "It's not here." 

Connor paused and glanced at him over his shoulder. "I know," he replied after a moment. "You sent it to Egypt." 

"Then why are we here?"

"To see how long it would take you to tell me." Connor shrugged, as if that were obvious somehow. "To see if you were someone I could trust." 

"Then you were looking for me. In Paris. _Me_. By name. You knew all of this already."

"Yes."

"We've spent five days trying to fool each other?"

"Yes."

"You have another job, then? Something...not this?"

"Yes." 

Connor paused. Connor turned and looked at him levelly, assessingly. 

"Do you want to know what it is?" he asked, at last. 

Arno leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest, sword dangling from one hand. Connor did the same, leaning there with his tomahawk. They eyed each other. They _really_ eyed each other, eagle vision brought to bear and all. And Arno had to admit it: in spite of everything, he really couldn't see a reason why he shouldn't trust him, and that wasn't just because he wanted to. That wasn't the only reason, at least. 

"Tell me when we get out of here," he said, then he narrowed his eyes at Connor in the not particularly sufficient light. "So, odd question, but how far do you think you could throw me?"

He'd been right the first time he'd thought of it: it was a terrible plan. He'd been right: he did hit the wall face-first, or at least he did the first time they tried it, and he did fall down straight on top of Connor and knock him down onto the ground in a haphazard heap. Arno pushed himself up just far enough to straddle Connor's hips and smiled at him, wide a maybe just a little cheeky, and Connor just snorted in amusement and shook his head against the dusty ground. Arno stood, offered his hand and pulled him up. For the first time in days, it actually felt pleasant to be working with him.

The first time didn't work. The second time, though, Connor braced himself then almost _roared_ as he boosted Arno up just high enough to twist his fingers into a crack in the wall. He bit off a yelp as he felt something in his hand pop painfully but he pulled up, his left arm straining tight, right arm straining upwards, the toes of his boots scrambling against the stone. He found another handhold, barely enough for his fingertips, and took a chance on it to pull himself up higher. Perhaps all those hours training with Bellec had paid off after all, he thought: it took time, more time than he'd have liked, and he was aching in places he hadn't realised it was possible ache by the time he reached the top, but he made it. He pulled himself up into the tunnel and sprawled uselessly against the ground, breathing hard with his legs still dangling down over the edge.

"Don't just lie there!" Connor called up, and Arno really couldn't help but laugh. But he did drag himself back up, and he did search; there was a wide coil of rope he found a few rooms back, fraying at one end but he thought it would do. And there was nothing sensible that he could tie the rope to without sending Connor plunging straight back down into the hole, so he slung a length of it behind his back, wrapped it tight around his arms and braced himself as best he could. Connor climbed. Arno leaned back against the pull and stood there, mostly firm. Then they left the catacombs together, for the last time. Arno was not sad to see the back of them. 

It was already dark outside when they emerged above, and they walked together silently through the streets toward the inn. Arno ached all over, from head to toe, and from what he could tell in the relative dark his fingers were turning a slightly ugly shade of purple; once they got back into the room, though, Connor poked and prodded at them as Arno cursed and between them, they determined nothing in his hand was actually broken. Connor splinted the first two fingers of Arno's left hand together, which seemed to help, and he brought a bottle of brandy up from the tavern, which definitely helped some more. And they sat there at the small table by the shuttered window and passed the bottle between them. Every now and then, Arno apparently forgot his injury and swore in French as he tried to take the bottle with his painful hand. Connor almost seemed like he might smile every now and then, even serious as he was, so Arno spent the next hour teaching him to swear as colourfully as he knew how to. That definitely made Arno smile, at least. 

Later, Connor had to help him to take off his coat. Connor had to help him to take off his boots. He helped him with his gauntlets, too, unstrapping them and slipping them off over his wrists, and Arno let him - Connor could have killed him ten times over since the moment that they'd met if he'd wanted to, hidden blades or not, a fact of which Arno was very much aware in that particular moment. Connor didn't stop there, though, much to Arno's pleased surprise; he eased Arno's shirt up over his head to bare his chest and then did the same thing to himself. It seemed perhaps he hadn't been reading the situation incorrectly after all. 

"Still trying to figure out if you can trust me?" Arno asked, once he'd sat himself down on the edge of the bed. That was, at least, one thing he could do without assistance. 

Connor came closer, hands and feet and chest all bare; he settled his hands at Arno's bare shoulders, ran his thumbs over his slightly prickly throat, then pushed him down onto his back. 

"No," he replied. "I know I can trust you." 

"So this is just for fun?"

Connor didn't answer; he just pushed his trousers down over his hips, stepped out of them, then leaned down to do the same for Arno. He supposed that was answer enough. 

Arno had slept with men before that. Perhaps he hadn't done so with any particular regularity, but he had - there'd been a few other not-quite-gentlemen and sons of other persuasions back in Versailles when he and Élise hadn't been quite on their usual good terms, and a few here and there after his arrival in Paris. He had something of a type, he realised, as he was propping himself up on his elbows to watch Connor strip the trousers off him - they'd all been bigger than him, and stronger than him, and apparently interested enough to strip him of his clothing. He really didn't mind that, especially not when Connor rested one knee against the edge of the mattress and leaned there, half over him, as Arno's legs still hung over the edge of the bed. Especially not when Connor leaned down far enough that he could take Arno's cock in his hand alongside his own and stroke them both together. Arno was stiff in a matter of seconds, his body almost embarrassingly eager except Connor seemed to like that and Arno couldn't seem to care very much how it seemed. He _was_ eager, after all. He'd been eager since the bathtub back in his room in the Café-Théâtre. And besides which, Connor's cock hardened very nearly just as quickly. 

"You know, I've been thinking about this since you were naked in my bathtub," Arno told him, once Connor nudged him to pull himself up toward the pillows. 

Connor's mouth twisted, not quite a smile but part of the way there, as he shifted up to straddle Arno's thighs. He caught their erections together in one hand again and spread his other hand on Arno's chest; he leaned forward slightly, pressing Arno firmly to the mattress. 

"I've known you were thinking about this since I was naked in your bathtub," Connor replied, then he hopped back off the bed to retrieve the oil he used for shaving from his bag. Arno raised his eyebrows at him as he came back naked and hard to the bed; he let his gaze drop down to Connor's thick, flushed cock standing up between his thighs and then dragged his eyes back up to his face again. 

"And where do you think you're putting that?" Arno said, though it really wasn't much of a question given they both already knew. They both knew, because Arno turned onto his front and, with a rather stunning lack of grace due to his aching hand he pushed up onto his knees and forearms, thighs spread wide. They _definitely_ both knew, because he felt the shift of the mattress as Connor joined him, and the weight of Connor's cock as he let it rest against the cleft of his arse. It turned out Connor really didn't need to say another word at all. 

He heard him uncap the bottle. He heard the slick sound of him stroking the oil over his cock then felt his hands at his arse, easing his cheeks apart. Arno had never really been particularly modest, he supposed, but his face turned hot as he felt Connor's thumb brush his hole. He felt him press there, not hard enough to push in past the muscle, perhaps just testing how tight he was as he slowly drizzled oil between his cheeks. He spread the oil with his thumb in slow circles, making Arno's hole twitch even tighter and his cock begin to ache as he hung down hard between his legs. His knees were parted so wide and his cock was so stiff that it almost but not quite brushed the blanket. It dripped onto it, though, which he could see as he let his head hang and looked down between his body and the bed. He could see the tip of his cock pushed out past his foreskin, red and wet and so sensitive that when he blew out a breath, the air against his skin made him shiver. 

Connor, as if he knew precisely what Arno was thinking, reached down between Arno's legs. Arno could see it as he wrapped free hand around his cock and rubbed his thumb over the wet tip, patted the pad of it against it and brought it away damp. His cock jumped when Connor's hand left him again and he realised the sound he heard was Connor sucking the precome from his thumb, tasting him. His cock throbbed harder. And Connor's other hand was still there at his arse, rubbing the rim of his hole. Connor's hand was still there, pressing a little harder and a little harder until the tip of his thick thumb breached him. Arno couldn't help it; he clenched his jaw and arched his back and, before he knew it, he'd impaled himself on the length of Connor's thumb. 

It felt good, and he let his hips rock against it slightly, feeling his hole twitch and tense around Connor's thumb, but it wasn't even nearly enough for him. Connor, for his part, seemed to feel the same; he pressed his thumb in deep, as deep as it could go, and then pulled it out completely, be he absolutely wasn't finished. Arno felt his cheeks being parted again, and felt oil drizzling against his hole again, trickling down his perineum and dripping from his balls. He felt Connor rub his cock between his cheeks, felt him squeeze them tight around his length and heard him gasp, but that was far from the end of it. The tip of Connor's cock came to his hole and he rubbed himself there, slowly, maybe meant to tease him and if that was the intent then it worked like a charm. Arno's balls ached and his cock throbbed and he was gripping the blanket as best he could with his bruised fingers and then Connor, slowly but with a quite singular purpose, began to press against him. 

Arno felt himself give. He felt his hole opened up by Connor's cock as he pushed against it, pushed _into_ it, felt himself opening up around his length. His breath was short but so was Connor's as he felt him pushing deeper still. He was big; he was long and thick and hot and hard and maybe not the biggest Arno had ever had, but that really didn't matter. What did matter was the feel of Connor's slightly oily hands as they gripped his hips then slid up to his waist once his cock was inside him as far as it could go, until Connor's hips were flush against his arse. What mattered was the way Connor's hands moved again after, back down to his cleft so his thumbs could rub at the place his cock pushed into him. His rim was taut and it pulled tighter as Connor touched him there, making him squeeze around the length inside him. Frankly, he could've come just like that without too much further intervention, but he supposed it might have seemed somewhat churlish. 

Arno braced himself against the mattress and when he pushed back against him, Connor made a ragged sort of surprised sound that made something inside Arno's chest feel tight. He supposed he'd understood that Connor was attracted to him or else chances were they wouldn't have ended up in bed in the first place, but that sound, and the way Connor's hips bucked forward and pressed his cock in just a fraction deeper...it made Arno's face flush warmly and his cock give a little kick. Connor chuckled and he gripped Arno's hips again. He drew back just an inch and then pushed back in. He drew back a couple of inches and then pushed back in. Arno groaned, half muffled by the mattress. Apparently Connor took that in the spirit it was meant: he pushed back in with a snap of his hips and began to set a slow, hard pace.

Arno had slept with men before that, yes. He'd had some extremely good sex with men before that, once he'd figured out that was something that he liked. And perhaps that time with Connor wasn't the best he'd ever had, no, but as Connor pushed into him, again and again, his hands tight and his cock thick and Arno's hole so tight around him, as Connor let one hand slip down to first press against Arno's stomach and then slide down to his cock, he thought it might have been in the top five. Connor just held his cock for a start, relying on the way Arno's hips shifted to create a little friction. Then, actually, he went still altogether and Arno laughed breathlessly against the mattress because he understood; he braced himself and pushed back against his cock, pushed forward against his hand, rocked back and forth until he was fucking himself on on Connor's length and stroking himself with Connor's hand. Connor's other thumb went back to his rim again and stroked him there, maddeningly, enough that a completely undeniable thread of pleasure started to weave its way all through him, from his chest into his navel, through his balls to the rim of his hole. He moved harder, faster, chasing that feeling, as he heard Connor's breath start hitching, as he heard him breathing through bared teeth then felt him snap and push his cock in hard and deep. 

Connor made a bitten off, half-muffled noise as bucked his hips and came inside him. Arno could feel the pulses of it as Connor emptied himself inside him, but he wasn't done; Connor urged Arno up off his hands and pulled him back against his slightly sweaty chest, buried his nose in the back of his hair and wrapped one big hand around Arno's cock. He was still hard inside him as he stroked him, holding his balls tight in his other hand, and all Arno could do was shift his hips in helpless little circles as his eyes closed and his pulse raced. He frankly hadn't felt so good in months and when he came, in five or six thick spurts over Connor's rough hand and the terrible blanket, that might actually have been the best he'd felt in the last year or more. 

Arno, breathless, almost dizzy, arched his back and turned his head just far enough that he could see Connor's flushed face with one eye. He craned his neck until it almost hurt and Connor seemed to take the hint; he kissed him on the mouth, not subtly or tenderly but as hard as he'd just fucked him. Arno nipped his bottom lip with his teeth and Connor chuckled. He liked that sound, he thought. 

Obviously, they did have to part in the end. Connor pulled back out of him and Arno felt him stroke his come-slicked rim with the pad of his thumb, then they lay down side by side despite the somewhat ruinous state of the bed. Connor turned his head and looked at him, still flushed and dark-eyed with his hair just as dishevelled as Arno knew his own must be. 

"I've been thinking about that since I was naked in your bathtub," Connor said, deadpan, and Arno laughed out loud. He kissed Connor's mouth and honestly Connor didn't seem to mind that at all. 

In the morning, Connor helped him shave, sitting at the table with his head tilted back and the razor's sharp edge pressed to his skin, almost snugly enough to break it. Arno didn't mind, though; somehow he knew that he was in safe hands with his odd new ally. And after that, they talked about the real reason Connor had made his little transatlantic trip. It wasn't the Apple that Arno had found there in Franciade that had brought him across the ocean; it was going to involve the sword Arno had taken from François-Thomas Germain that night he spent too much time remembering, and then a journey to a place he hadn't realised existed though with the things he'd seen over the years he didn't doubt it did. Connor seemed certain, after all, and for reasons that he's still not sure he could articulate, he trusted him. 

"So, will you still come?" Connor asked, just like he had the last time, just like he had about the extremely fake joint mission there to Franciade. 

Arno laughed. "Why not?" he replied. "It's not as if I'm otherwise engaged." 

And so, after a leisurely night spent together in Arno's bed back at the Café-Théâtre, after Arno had ridden Connor's cock for all he was worth, they left France entirely. At the time, it seemed like an excellent idea, and even now he's not sure that it wasn't. 

Over the years, they've met again and again. They went to Egypt once, though not to find the Apple Arno sent there; Napoleon, it turned out, had designs on something else there that they found buried underneath the sand. They went to Scandinavia and got lost in a snowstorm, too; Arno thinks the only reason they avoided frostbite and then certain death was the fact they shared their body heat with such efficiency. And so it went on.

Over the years, they've met so many times it's difficult to count them. They've come to each other with jobs to do, the kind that no one else would want to, the kind that very few Assassins even can and fewer will, though there's never been a time when the mission has gone entirely to plan. Honestly, Arno doesn't mind that; sometimes, honestly, that thrill of pulling each other from the jaws of death what he needs to keep him going. Sometimes, when he's thinking so much that even the view across Paris can't help calm his mind, Connor's face as he brings him a mission is precisely what he needs to see. 

Now, Arno is forty-four years old and he's perching on the balustrade that lines the walkway by the roof of the Sainte-Chapelle. It's autumn, and it's raining, and he should know better than to do this yet again - one day he's really going to slip and fall, he thinks, and next time maybe Connor won't be there to catch him. But this time, he's ready when he hears Connor say his name. He doesn't need to be caught, but if he did then Connor would save him. 

He smiles. He stands. He turns and he steps down onto the walkway and the two of them meet in a rough, fond kiss that's as much about the younger men that they once were as the older ones that they are now. Neither of them's changed much. Arno doesn't think they want to.

"So, where are we going to this time?" Arno asks, as they rest their damp foreheads together there, hoods and all. 

"Bed," Connor replies, straightforwardly. "Then Venice, for a start." And there's no question about it, for either of them: that's exactly what they'll do, in exactly that order. 

He knows Élise de la Serre was the love of his life, but it's been decades now. Connor Kenway - Ratonhnhaké:ton, though it took Arno at least five years to say his real name in a way that didn't make him frown and tell him _just say Connor_ \- is something else. He's as much Arno's friend as he's his lover, and sometimes Arno feels like friends might be in short supply for men like them, so he appreciates what they have all the more. They've both lost so much, but at least they've gained this. 

This is the place they met nearly twenty years ago. It's just one of the places that Arno hopes they'll keep on meeting. 

Nothing between them has ever gone to plan. As they leave the roof together, a leap of faith one after the other and a much-needed smile on Arno's face, he thinks that might be what he likes about it best.


End file.
